Which languages are most similar?

This page lists how similar 260 languages are to each other. Hover over a language code for the language name. Click to see more explanation.

RENDER

EnglishSimple English Scots Novial Zhuang Anglo-Saxon Siswati all
GermanBavarian Alemannic Luxembourgish Pennsylvania German Ripuarian Low Saxon all
FrenchOccitan Catalan Asturian Interlingue Ligurian Interlingua all
DutchDutch Low Saxon West Flemsih Limburgish Afrikaans Low Saxon Zealandic all
ItalianVenetian Ligurian Corsican Interlingua Neapolitan Asturian all
PolishSilesian Cassubian Lower Sorbian Slovak Upper Sorbian Slovene all
SpanishChavacano Asturian Galician Portuguese Aragonese Extremaduran all
RussianBulgarian Serbian Ukrainian Rusyn Macedonian Moldavian all
PortugueseGalician Spanish Chavacano Mirandese Asturian Venetian all
SwedishNynorsk Norwegian Danish Novial Dutch Low Saxon Anglo-Saxon all
CatalanAsturian Occitan Spanish Chavacano Aragonese Galician all
UkrainianRusyn Russian Serbian Bulgarian Macedonian Belarusian all
NorwegianDanish Nynorsk Swedish Dutch Low Saxon Frisian Dutch all
FinnishEstonian Voro Oromo Nynorsk Italian Norwegian all
VietnameseCentral Bicolano Min Nan Zhuang Wu Tok Pisin Bislama all
CzechSlovak Slovene Serbocroatian Croatian Bosnian Esperanto all
HungarianNorwegian Nynorsk Danish Italian Swedish Ligurian all
KoreanCantonese Wu Novial English Simple English Scots all
IndonesianMalay Banjar Banyumasan Javanese Sundanese Tagalog all
TurkishGagauz Crimean Tatar Karakalpak Azeri Turkmen Nynorsk all
RomanianVenetian Latin Sardinian Interlingua Corsican Italian all
FarsiGilaki Mazandarani Western Panjabi Pashto Sorani Urdu all
ArabicEgyptian Arabic Pashto Sindhi Farsi Urdu Gilaki all
DanishNorwegian Nynorsk Swedish Dutch Low Saxon Anglo-Saxon German all
EsperantoLadino Venetian Sardinian Chavacano Spanish Galician all
SerbianMacedonian Bulgarian Russian Ukrainian Moldavian Rusyn all
LithuanianLatvian Esperanto Ladino Serbocroatian Bosnian Slovene all
SloveneSerbocroatian Croatian Bosnian Slovak Czech Esperanto all
SlovakCzech Slovene Serbocroatian Croatian Bosnian Esperanto all
MalayIndonesian Banjar Banyumasan Javanese Sundanese Tagalog all
HebrewYiddish Cantonese Wu Korean Novial English all
BulgarianMacedonian Russian Serbian Moldavian Ukrainian Rusyn all
KazakhKirghiz Tatar Karachay-Balkar Bashkir Sakha Belarusian all
BaqueSardinian Papiamentu Ladino Romanian Catalan Occitan all
VolapükPapiamentu Novial Occitan French Ladino Bambara all
Waray-WarayCebuano Central Bicolano Occitan Ladino Sundanese Portuguese all
CroatianBosnian Serbocroatian Slovene Slovak Czech Esperanto all
HindiNepali Sanskrit Marathi Bihari Nepal Bhasa Pali all
EstonianVoro Finnish Esperanto Latin Sardinian Ladino all
AzeriGagauz Turkish Crimean Tatar Karakalpak Turkmen Uzbek all
GalicianSpanish Chavacano Portuguese Asturian Aragonese Mirandese all
Simple EnglishEnglish Scots Novial Zhuang Anglo-Saxon Siswati all
NynorskNorwegian Danish Swedish Faroese Icelandic Dutch Low Saxon all
ThaiWu English Simple English Novial Scots Cantonese all
Nepal BhasaSanskrit Nepali Hindi Marathi Bihari Pali all
GreekPontic Wu Cantonese Novial English Korean all
LatinInterlingua Corsican Interlingue Sardinian Extremaduran Venetian all
AromanianRomanian Estonian Sardinian Venetian Interlingue Latin all
OccitanCatalan French Chavacano Aragonese Spanish Asturian all
TagalogBanjar Central Bicolano Javanese Kapampangan Banyumasan Indonesian all
MacedonianBulgarian Serbian Russian Moldavian Ukrainian Rusyn all
GeorgianMingrelian Wu Cantonese Korean Simple English English all
HaitianPapiamentu Banyumasan Tagalog Banjar Central Bicolano Ladino all
SerbocroatianBosnian Croatian Slovene Slovak Czech Esperanto all
PiedmonteseVenetian Occitan Ligurian Friulian French Italian all
TeluguWu Cantonese English Simple English Scots Novial all
TamilWu Cantonese Korean Novial English Simple English all
CebuanoTagalog Waray-Waray Central Bicolano Banjar Javanese Indonesian all
BelarusianBelarusian Rusyn Russian Ukrainian Serbian Bulgarian all
BretonSardinian Norwegian Venetian Italian Nynorsk French all
AlbanianNovial Venetian Ladino Esperanto Papiamentu Italian all
LatvianLithuanian Latgalian Ladino Esperanto Serbocroatian Bosnian all
JavaneseKapampangan Banyumasan Banjar Indonesian Malay Sundanese all
BelarusianBelarusian Rusyn Russian Ukrainian Serbian Bulgarian all
WelshCornish Breton Sardinian Nynorsk Italian Venetian all
LuxembourgishAlemannic Pennsylvania German German Ripuarian Low Saxon Bavarian all
MalagasyBambara Banjar Sundanese Papiamentu Hausa Javanese all
MarathiNepali Sanskrit Hindi English Simple English Scots all
IcelandicFaroese Nynorsk Swedish Norwegian Anglo-Saxon Danish all
BosnianSerbocroatian Croatian Slovene Slovak Czech Esperanto all
YorubaNovial Igbo English Siswati Romanian Simple English all
AragoneseSpanish Chavacano Asturian Galician Extremaduran Catalan all
Bishnupriya ManipuriBengali Assamese English Simple English Novial Scots all
LombardVenetian Italian Catalan Ligurian Occitan Interlingue all
FrisianDutch Low Saxon West Flemsih Norwegian Saterland Frisian Limburgish Dutch all
SwahiliShona Hausa Zulu Banjar Javanese Tsonga all
BengaliAssamese Bishnupriya Manipuri English Simple English Novial Scots all
IdoEsperanto Norfolk Ladino Papiamentu Venetian Sardinian all
MalayalamWu Cantonese Korean Novial English Simple English all
GujaratiEnglish Simple English Scots Wu Cantonese Novial all
Western PanjabiUrdu Farsi Gilaki Mazandarani Pashto Sorani all
AfrikaansDutch Dutch Low Saxon Limburgish West Flemsih Zealandic German all
ArmenianCantonese Wu Korean English Novial Simple English all
NepaliSanskrit Hindi Marathi Bihari Nepal Bhasa English all
Low SaxonRipuarian Luxembourgish German Dutch Low Saxon Alemannic Dutch all
SicilianCorsican Sardinian Neapolitan Ligurian Latin Italian all
UrduWestern Panjabi Farsi Pashto Gilaki Mazandarani Kashmiri all
KurdishZazaki Romani Hausa Indonesian Malay Kirundi all
CantoneseWu English Simple English Novial Scots Zhuang all
QuechuaAymara Hausa Corsican Swahili Banjar Aragonese all
SundaneseBanjar Javanese Banyumasan Indonesian Malay Tagalog all
ZazakiKurdish Romani Hausa Ladino Papiamentu Indonesian all
AsturianSpanish Chavacano Galician Extremaduran Catalan Aragonese all
TatarKirghiz Kazakh Karachay-Balkar Sakha Bashkir Eastern Mari all
IrishScots Gaelic Scots Bavarian Simple English English Wu all
NeapolitanItalian Ligurian Venetian Corsican Sardinian Sicilian all
ChuvashMoldavian Tatar Bulgarian Russian Macedonian Serbian all
SamogitianLithuanian Latgalian Latvian Esperanto Finnish Slovene all
InterlinguaInterlingue Venetian Italian Chavacano Catalan Latin all
WalloonFrench Picard Occitan Catalan Asturian Arpitan all
AmharicTigrinya Wu English Novial Cantonese Simple English all
KannadaWu Cantonese Korean English Simple English Novial all
AlemannicBavarian Palatinate Pennsylvania German Ripuarian German Luxembourgish all
BanyumasanIndonesian Javanese Banjar Malay Sundanese Tagalog all
BugineseOccitan Hausa Venetian Malay Neapolitan Corsican all
BurmeseEnglish Simple English Novial Scots Interlingua Interlingue all
Min NanHakka Shona Igbo Vietnamese Min Dong Sicilian all
TajikSerbian Russian Bulgarian Kirghiz Moldavian Ukrainian all
VenetianItalian Ligurian Chavacano Spanish Friulian Portuguese all
YiddishHebrew Wu Cantonese Korean Ladino Novial all
TarantinoNeapolitan Italian Ligurian Venetian Sardinian Corsican all
Scots GaelicIrish Bavarian Norman Wu Icelandic Welsh all
OsseticTajik Karachay-Balkar Kirghiz Russian Moldavian Kazakh all
Egyptian ArabicArabic Pashto Sindhi Farsi Urdu Gilaki all
NahuatlSpanish Chavacano Aragonese Asturian Extremaduran Galician all
SakhaKirghiz Tatar Buryat Kazakh Chechen Karachay-Balkar all
ScotsSimple English English Novial Zhuang Siswati Wu all
UzbekHausa Javanese Ladino Central Bicolano Karakalpak Kapampangan all
KapampanganJavanese Tagalog Banyumasan Banjar Indonesian Malay all
Fiji HindiNovial Interlingue Interlingua Latin Scots English all
SanskritNepali Hindi Marathi Pali Nepal Bhasa Bihari all
MongolianBuryat Kalmyk Kirghiz Sakha Chechen Tajik all
Upper SorbianLower Sorbian Silesian Slovene Bosnian Croatian Serbocroatian all
MaoriTongan Javanese Banjar Sundanese Malay Tagalog all
LimburgishDutch Low Saxon Dutch West Flemsih Afrikaans Zealandic German all
BashkirKazakh Tatar Kirghiz Karachay-Balkar Sakha Eastern Mari all
CorsicanSicilian Sardinian Italian Venetian Ligurian Neapolitan all
SinhalaEnglish Simple English Scots Novial Zhuang Wu all
GanCantonese Wu English Simple English Novial Scots all
GilakiFarsi Mazandarani Pashto Western Panjabi Urdu Sorani all
FaroeseIcelandic Nynorsk Swedish Norwegian Danish Estonian all
Central BicolanoTagalog Javanese Banjar Indonesian Malay Sundanese all
SoraniFarsi Gilaki Western Panjabi Mazandarani Urdu Pashto all
BavarianAlemannic German Pennsylvania German Palatinate Ripuarian Luxembourgish all
TibetanDzongkha Norfolk Turkish English Novial Wu all
Western MariEastern Mari Kirghiz Russian Tatar Moldavian Bulgarian all
VoroEstonian Finnish Esperanto Sardinian Nynorsk Oromo all
Dutch Low SaxonWest Flemsih Limburgish Dutch Afrikaans Zealandic Low Saxon all
IlokanoCentral Bicolano Sundanese Banjar Javanese Malay Indonesian all
KirghizKazakh Tatar Karachay-Balkar Sakha Eastern Mari Tajik all
TurkmenTurkish Gagauz Crimean Tatar Karakalpak Azeri Indonesian all
West FlemsihDutch Low Saxon Dutch Limburgish Zealandic Afrikaans German all
Northern SamiFinnish Estonian Voro Nynorsk Swedish Italian all
ManxCornish Nynorsk Aromanian Italian Finnish Sardinian all
DivehiWu Cantonese English Simple English Scots Novial all
NormanFrench Picard Arpitan Occitan Ligurian Sardinian all
RusynUkrainian Russian Serbian Bulgarian Belarusian Belarusian all
PangasianSundanese Banjar Javanese Tagalog Swahili Bambara all
PunjabiEnglish Simple English Scots Novial Wu Zhuang all
RomanshSardinian Venetian Ligurian Italian Corsican Occitan all
MazandaraniFarsi Gilaki Pashto Western Panjabi Urdu Sorani all
PashtoGilaki Farsi English Mazandarani Simple English Sindhi all
KhmerEnglish Simple English Scots Novial Zhuang Wu all
UdmurtKomi Russian Komi-Permyak Ukrainian Moldavian Kirghiz all
FriulianVenetian Ligurian Italian Sardinian Corsican Occitan all
CassubianPolish Silesian Lower Sorbian Slovak Serbocroatian Upper Sorbian all
WuCantonese English Simple English Novial Scots Zhuang all
MalteseCorsican Italian Sicilian Sardinian Ligurian Ladino all
UyghurPashto Egyptian Arabic Farsi Gilaki Arabic Sorani all
LigurianVenetian Italian Sardinian Neapolitan Corsican Portuguese all
Komi-PermyakKomi Udmurt Russian Moksha Ukrainian Tatar all
PaliBihari Sanskrit Hindi Nepali Nepal Bhasa Marathi all
Eastern MariWestern Mari Kirghiz Russian Tatar Moldavian Bulgarian all
KomiKomi-Permyak Udmurt Russian Moldavian Kirghiz Serbian all
Anglo-SaxonEnglish Simple English Danish Novial Nynorsk Norwegian all
LadinoChavacano Spanish Asturian Venetian Portuguese Galician all
BihariPali Hindi Nepali Sanskrit Marathi English all
SardinianCorsican Venetian Ligurian Italian Chavacano Portuguese all
NovialEnglish Simple English Scots Interlingue Interlingua Venetian all
Classical ChineseCantonese Wu Novial English Simple English Danish all
RipuarianAlemannic Pennsylvania German Palatinate Bavarian Low Saxon Luxembourgish all
ChavacanoSpanish Asturian Galician Portuguese Extremaduran Aragonese all
SomaliOromo Wolof Hausa Banjar Bambara Malay all
HakkaMin Nan Min Dong Venda Vietnamese Zulu Setswana all
NavajoSomali Wolof Oromo Estonian Swahili Voro all
CornishNorwegian Breton Nynorsk Danish Novial Ladino all
ArpitanOccitan French Extremaduran Asturian Catalan Aragonese all
Saterland FrisianDutch Low Saxon West Flemsih Frisian North Frisian Dutch German all
SilesianPolish Lower Sorbian Upper Sorbian Czech Slovene Croatian all
ExtremaduranAsturian Chavacano Spanish Aragonese Galician Catalan all
OriyaEnglish Simple English Scots Novial Zhuang Anglo-Saxon all
InterlingueInterlingua Venetian Italian Occitan Catalan Novial all
PicardFrench Occitan Walloon Friulian Ligurian Venetian all
KalmykMongolian Buryat Kirghiz Russian Tajik Karachay-Balkar all
Hawai'ianBambara Swahili Tsonga Aromanian Javanese Romani all
MingrelianGeorgian Wu Cantonese Korean Novial Simple English all
KinyarwandaKirundi Swahili Hausa Indonesian Malay Banjar all
LingalaKongo Zulu Javanese Swahili Tagalog Indonesian all
North FrisianDutch Low Saxon Dutch Low Saxon Limburgish Ripuarian Saterland Frisian all
Pennsylvania GermanAlemannic Palatinate Bavarian Ripuarian Luxembourgish German all
PalatinateAlemannic Pennsylvania German Bavarian Ripuarian Luxembourgish German all
AymaraQuechua Hausa Swahili Banjar Bambara Shona all
Karachay-BalkarKirghiz Kazakh Tatar Sakha Tajik Russian all
TonganMaori Sundanese Javanese Zulu Siswati Tsonga all
AcehneseSundanese Banjar Tagalog Banyumasan Indonesian Javanese all
Emilian-RomagnolFriulian Venetian Ligurian Romansh Neapolitan Corsican all
Crimean TatarTurkish Gagauz Karakalpak Azeri Turkmen Zazaki all
ChechenAvar Sakha Lak Abkhazian Kirghiz Mongolian all
GuaraniSpanish Chavacano Portuguese Galician Ladino Asturian all
ErzyaMoksha Russian Moldavian Rusyn Ukrainian Bulgarian all
ZealandicWest Flemsih Dutch Low Saxon Limburgish Dutch Afrikaans Luxembourgish all
AramaicWu Cantonese Korean Interlingue Chavacano Novial all
GreenlandicFinnish Oromo Estonian Voro Sicilian Corsican all
PapiamentuLadino Chavacano Spanish Venetian Portuguese Galician all
GagauzTurkish Crimean Tatar Azeri Karakalpak Turkmen Hausa all
BanjarIndonesian Malay Banyumasan Javanese Sundanese Tagalog all
LakAvar Chechen Karachay-Balkar Tajik Sakha Kirghiz all
Tok PisinBislama Central Bicolano Novial Siswati Norfolk Javanese all
WolofOromo Somali North Frisian Estonian Finnish Bambara all
LojbanEstonian Extremaduran Corsican Venetian Sardinian Serbocroatian all
AssameseBengali English Simple English Scots Novial Bishnupriya Manipuri all
MokshaErzya Russian Rusyn Tajik Ukrainian Serbian all
AvarLak Chechen Kirghiz Karachay-Balkar Tajik Buryat all
KabyleNynorsk Italian Finnish Norwegian Corsican Occitan all
Lower SorbianUpper Sorbian Silesian Slovene Serbocroatian Croatian Bosnian all
TahitianIlokano Samoan Tetum Baque Corsican Interlingua all
ShonaSwahili Kirundi Kinyarwanda Tsonga Romani Siswati all
SrananBanjar Banyumasan Papiamentu Indonesian Javanese Sundanese all
LaotianEnglish Simple English Scots Novial Wu Cantonese all
AbkhazianKirghiz Chechen Sakha Karachay-Balkar Tatar Kazakh all
IgboEnglish Simple English Novial Scots Anglo-Saxon Siswati all
NauruanSundanese Indonesian Malay Javanese Banyumasan Tsonga all
TetumLadino Portuguese Papiamentu Sardinian Galician Mirandese all
KongoZulu Lingala Tsonga Swahili Javanese Siswati all
MirandesePortuguese Galician Spanish Chavacano Asturian Extremaduran all
KarakalpakTurkish Gagauz Crimean Tatar Azeri Turkmen Uzbek all
LatgalianLatvian Lithuanian Romanian Esperanto Estonian Serbocroatian all
Northern SothoSetswana Siswati Zulu Tsonga Samoan Novial all
RomaniNovial Hausa Siswati Anglo-Saxon Indonesian Ladino all
Old Church SlavonicRusyn Russian Serbian Bulgarian Ukrainian Belarusian all
KarbadianKarachay-Balkar Ossetic Avar Buryat Chechen Lak all
SetswanaNorthern Sotho Siswati Tsonga Zulu Malay Indonesian all
SamoanSundanese Banjar Tongan Bambara Estonian Swahili all
MoldavianBulgarian Russian Serbian Macedonian Ukrainian Rusyn all
SindhiPashto Egyptian Arabic Arabic Farsi Gilaki Western Panjabi all
BislamaTok Pisin Central Bicolano Interlingue Norfolk Esperanto Tongan all
BambaraHausa Banjar Akan Central Bicolano Swahili Javanese all
InupiakEstonian Sicilian Corsican Latin Interlingue Interlingua all
SiswatiZulu English Simple English Novial Scots Tsonga all
InuktitutInupiak Greenlandic Sicilian Latin Novial Corsican all
NorfolkNovial Ladino Chavacano Spanish Extremaduran Asturian all
ZhuangEnglish Simple English Scots Novial German Anglo-Saxon all
CherokeeNovial Interlingua Latin Interlingue English Venetian all
PonticGreek Wu Cantonese Novial Korean Venetian all
GothicNynorsk Hausa Faroese Papiamentu Estonian Icelandic all
Min DongMin Nan Hakka Vietnamese Kapampangan Javanese Zhuang all
EweSiswati Igbo Akan Novial Swahili Zulu all
HausaBanjar Bambara Swahili Sundanese Kirundi Kinyarwanda all
ZuluSiswati Tsonga Javanese Swahili Kirundi Kinyarwanda all
TigrinyaAmharic Alemannic Anglo-Saxon Bavarian Palatinate Pennsylvania German all
KashmiriUrdu Western Panjabi Farsi Gilaki Pashto Mazandarani all
BuryatMongolian Kalmyk Kirghiz Sakha Tajik Karachay-Balkar all
OromoSomali Wolof Finnish Bambara Hausa Banjar all
VendaTsonga Zulu Shona Siswati Swahili Setswana all
TsongaZulu Siswati Swahili Shona Javanese Kongo all
SangroTsonga Kurdish Kongo Banyumasan Lingala Indonesian all
KirundiKinyarwanda Shona Swahili Hausa Zulu Banjar all
CreeSwahili Shona Romani Central Bicolano Siswati Hausa all
DzongkhaTibetan English Simple English Scots Norfolk Novial all
AkanBambara Papiamentu Hausa Sundanese Banjar Oromo all


Explanation

The results on this page are based on the comparison of letter trigram frequency in the given languages. This means, we took the text of 262 language editions of Wikipedia, counted how often three letters in a row appear, and compared the result with each other to figure out how similar the languages are — in this respect.

The alphabets have not been normalized, which leads to a great difference in some languages where you would not expect them, for example between Serbian and Croatian. Chinese and Japanese have been skipped due to their huge number of ngrams (for the raw data, see the letter frequency corpus).

Note that this similarity does not mean that the languages are indeed similar in any other sense of similarity besides their simple letter frequency. This page makes no direct historical, cultural, or political statement.

There are also results based on the letter pairs and single letters. For comparison and evaluation, there is some scarce data collected from Ethnologue.

There is a separate page with more information on the underlying trigram, bigram, and unigram data.

You can download the complete similarity dataset (2 MB).

The Wikipedia dumps used where the most recent ones as downloaded on October 9 2012.

Created November 4 2012, Denny Vrandečić.